How This All Works

For most small business owners, their bookkeeping doesn’t work because they aren’t expecting enough from it. It sounds counter-intuitive, but by expecting only the bare minimum, bookkeeping actually becomes more work, because they’ve never really understood the art of accounting, and the story that the numbers can give them about their business. The strange thing is: it’s an entire side of your business that can be fun(?!) and unlock hidden profit for you – which is even more fun.

You need to leverage not only the science of accounting, but the art of it, within your business. Yes, bookkeeping may at first glance appear to be black and white, but it’s really not. For your accounting to work you do need the black and white of the numbers. However, every business is different and for the accounting to work not just for taxes, but for your every day business and life, there needs to be an approach that tells a story about the business.

If you just want the numbers to total up so you can forget about them, you are missing out big time and the help that you do get will be the minimal help… which often doesn’t really do the job for you. There’s accounting that merely keeps the tax people happy, and then there’s accounting that helps you plan and grow and make decisions. And wouldn’t it take a huge weight off your shoulders to know that you are always on track to complete taxes easily and on time? And wouldn’t it be even better to know where you stand so you aren’t surprised at 10 pm on April 15 with how much you owe?

Three things are needed to harness the art of the number:

Breathe. You need to breathe.Your numbers aren’t strangling you, you just need to take a moment to breathe. It may seem overwhelming and crazy-making, but the numbers themselves can help you out of this mess, and the first step is to breathe.

You need to understand how the numbers tell a story.The numbers are telling you a story. If you can hear the story, it makes them more interesting to follow, and you’ll discover that your business is actually telling you all kinds of things that you’ve been aching to know.

You need a system that works for you.Accounting and bookkeeping isn’t one-size fits all, it’s not cookie cutter, and you don’t need a strait-jacket for your business. Whether you hire out the bookkeeping or keep it in-house, getting a system that really works makes it all much easier.

Once you breathe, understand the story of the numbers, and have a system for your bookkeeping, your business, your bank account, and your sanity can all start to benefit from the tremendous amount of effort that you’ve already put into things. And the numbers can start to show all of that to you.

Heart Based Bookkeeping is a virtual bookkeeping service.

I work with clients in locations ALL across the United States and Canada, and with U.S. Citizens living and conducting business in foreign countries as well.